$100 in 1949 is worth $461 in 1986,
because prices increased 360.5% over that period, an average of
4.21% a year.
$100 in 1949 has
the same buying power as
$461
in 1986
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
360.5%
Average inflation rate
4.21% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$461
Price difference ($100 base)
$361
CPI in 1949
23.8
CPI in 1986
109.6
Inflation in 1949
-1.24%
Inflation in 1986
1.86%
$100 in 1949 → 1986
$461
$100 in 1986 → 1949
$21.72
What happened to prices between 1949 and 1986
Between 1949 and 1986, the Consumer Price Index went from 23.8 to 109.6.
Cumulatively, prices increased 360.5%, which works out to an average of
4.21% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1949 bought what
$0.22 buys in 1986: the 1949 dollar
lost 78.3% of its purchasing power over
these 37 years.
Consumer prices fell 1.2% in 1949, down from 1948’s 8.1%
gain and the first annual decline since 1939, the first real break in a
decade otherwise defined by wartime and postwar inflation. A mild recession
drove the drop: the National Bureau of Economic Research dates a downturn
from November 1948 to October 1949, as businesses worked off inventories
built up during the postwar buying boom and price pressure finally eased.
The Cold War hardened around the same time. On April 4, the United States,
Canada, and ten Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty,
committing to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all and
formalizing the Western alliance against Soviet expansion. That August 29,
the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, ending the American nuclear
monopoly just four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and setting off an
arms race that would run for decades. Congress closed out the decade’s wage
policy that October, passing the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949 to
raise the federal minimum wage to 75 cents an hour effective the following
January, nearly double the 40 cents that had held since 1945. The decade
closed with consumer prices 140.4% above their 1913 level,
up 70% since 1940 alone even after 1949’s decline.
First-class postage held at 3 cents.
Every 1949 amount converts to 1986 at the same ratio, 4.61: $1,000 becomes
$4,605, and $10,000 becomes $46,050.
Amount in 1949
Value in 1986
$1.00
$4.61
$5.00
$23.03
$10.00
$46.05
$20.00
$92.10
$50.00
$230
$100
$461
$500
$2,303
$1,000
$4,605
$5,000
$23,025
$10,000
$46,050
$100,000
$460,504
$1,000,000
$4,605,042
Inflation by spending category, 1949–1986
Between 1949 and 1986, medical care rose the most, up 724.3%, while apparel rose the least, up 159.6%, against 360.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1949
spending costs in 1986, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1949 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.21%
$461
Medical care
5.87%
$824
Transportation
4.23%
$463
Food
4.06%
$436
Apparel
2.61%
$260
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1949: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1949 to 1986
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and slowest in the 1940s (1.26% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1949–1986 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1949, at end
1949–1950
1.26%
1.3%
$101
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$124
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$163
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$346
1980–1986
4.87%
33.0%
$461
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1949
$100 from 1949 had already become $140 by
1967, on its way to $461 in 1986; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 13.5% in 1980, and prices fell 0.4% in 1955, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 2 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1986
In 1986, prices rose 1.9% and $100 from 1949 had the buying
power of $461; the year's average CPI of 109.6 is the level
behind every 1986 figure on this page.
1986 delivered the decade’s biggest one-year drop in inflation, and it came
almost entirely from a single source: oil. Saudi Arabia abandoned its policy
of restraining output to prop up prices, and world crude collapsed from
about $27 a barrel to under $10 by midyear. Gasoline, which had averaged
$1.12 a gallon in 1985, fell to 86 cents. With energy costs plunging,
headline CPI inflation for the year came in at just 1.9%, the lowest annual
rate since 1965 and a striking bookend to 1980’s 13.5% peak. The relief was
uneven: prices for most goods and services outside energy kept rising at a
moderate pace, so households that didn’t drive much or heat with oil felt
less of the difference. In October, Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of
1986, a bipartisan overhaul that cut the top individual income tax rate from
50% to 28% while closing many deductions and shelters, the broadest rewrite
of the federal tax code since World War II. Between cheap gas and falling
interest rates, 1986 read like proof that the inflationary 1970s were a
closed chapter, six years after the U.S. economy had felt anything but
calm.
MLA: “Inflation from 1949 to 1986: $100 is worth $461 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1986/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1949 to 1986. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1949-to-1986/